Aadhaar date to be extended: UID Scheme for poor, Right to Privacy

The earlier deadline date for applying Aadhaar was 30th June which is extended to September 30th. The Supreme Court on Thursday declared that the right to privacy is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution and the Government is pushing hard to make the Aadhaar mandatory. The Government of India has made Aadhaar compulsory in all fields, starting from the income tax filing to linking Aadhaar with the PAN Card. Below is the sketch of the scenario how Aadhaar has been developing.

March 2006– The Unique ID Scheme was approved for the poor families.

December 2006– The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) assembled two schemes- the National Population Register under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the UID Scheme.

On 2007, The EGoM in the first meeting proposed to create a database for the residents. This lead to the inception of the Aadhaar.

In the year 2009, the UIDAI introduced to provide and issue unique identification numbers to all the residents, Nandan Nilekani was appointed as the first chairman.

In the year December 2010, the National Identification Authority of India Bill was broached in the Parliament.

On September 2011, the graph of the Aadhaar user holders crossed over 100 million.

On December 2011, the Standing Committee gave thumbs down to the NIAI Bill. The Committee demanded the privacy legislation and data protection law before continuing the scheme.

On 2012, the Former High Court filed a petition claiming that Aadhaar is violating the fundamental rights of equality and privacy.

On 2013, the Supreme Court passed a provisional order expressing that no person should go through any problem regarding for non-issuance of Aadhaar.

On December 2013– The Aadhaar holder statistics crossed 510 million.

On March 2014 the Supreme Court declared an order for demanding Aadhaar for the welfare schemes. The Court withhold UIDAI from sharing information in the Aadhaar database with any agency without the individual’s consent.

On December 2014, the Aadhaar users statistics crossed 720 million.

On Aug 2015, the Three Judge bench of Supreme Court limited the use of Aadhaar Schemes for certain welfare schemes. It also made an order that no one should be denied in benefits for the lack of the Aadhaar. This aroused the question to the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

By February 2016, the Aadhaar users stacked up to 980 million.

On March 2016, the Aadhaar bill was introduced as the money bill in the lower Parliament House.

By January-March 2017, the Ministries made Aadhaar compulsory for different sectors such as Welfare, pension, and employment schemes. The Aadhaar has also been made mandatory for ITR Filing purpose. By now the Aadhaar has crossed up to 1.14 billion.

Aadhaar trends till Aug,2017 source:uidai.gov.in/aadhaar_dashboard

Thus, the Aadhaar is emerging like a fire. It is soon to cross more than billion by the end of the year.